Kelso Man Uses Internet To Spread His Outlook On Christian Living

LONGVIEW - No longer does someone need a pulpit, printing press, broadcast station or even a street corner to preach to the multitudes.

Take, for example, Kelso resident Tyler Ramey.

"I would consider myself a church leader, but not in the formal sense," says Ramey, a Norpac employee.

Ramey, 32, has joined the legion of Christians who have taken proselytizing to the Internet - a relatively low-cost way to be a voice crying in the sometimes hostile wilderness of cyberspace.

On the Net, just about every church leader and denomination gets touted and trashed. Even beloved figures such as the Rev. Billy Graham are slammed.

Anything goes, it seems.

Into the fray now comes Ramey's Internet publication called, "Foundations of Christian Truth."

"We are going to be providing on a consistent basis controversial subject matter," Ramey promises.

Indeed. In the current posting at www.truth-enterprises.com, Ramey calls the Seventh-day Adventist Church a "non-Christian cult" and links abortion to the Holocaust.

"I don't put things on the Web site to offend," he said. "But if somebody doesn't get offended by what I put on the Web site, then I don't believe I'm fulfilling what I've been called to do in this ministry."

Original plans changed

Ramey originally planned a print magazine. But getting such a publication started left him feeling like "the proverbial deer caught in the headlights."

Instead, for an investment of a little over a couple thousand dollars and some help from friends, Ramey has a Web site to address what he calls a "crisis in Christian education."

"My objective is to see Christians challenged at a level they're not typically challenged at in Sunday school classes or from the pulpit," said Ramey, a graduate of Columbia Evangelical Seminary, a self-described "nontraditional school" based in Longview.

Ramey's site currently includes several articles written by him, Columbia Evangelical Seminary director Rick Walston and others.

The "WARNING" link on the home page takes viewers to an article by Ramey stating that Seventh-day Adventists need to be "beaten back" in their efforts to convert others because they are "in fact not" Christians.

"My initial response is sadness that they would take that view of us," said Dave Livermore, pastor of the Kelso-Longview Seventh-day Adventist Church. "There's no way we're a cult. We're really a church filled with people who have a heart for God."

The anti-abortion page features Hitler's head, with blood streaming down his face, superimposed over a U.S. flag.

The headline screams: ONE MURDEROUS NATION . . . UNDER GOD? ARE YOU & YOUR CHURCH RESPONDING TO THE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST?

Below the headline and Hitler's head, the page settles into a description of the Caring Pregnancy Center of Cowlitz County, which encourages women to carry their pregnancies to full term.

Tame by comparison

Still, Ramey's Web site is relatively tame compared with the others among the multitude of religious sites in cyberspace.

In Portland, Planned Parenthood and five doctors sued a Web site called "The Nuremberg Files," claiming the Web site violates a federal law against inciting violence against abortion doctors and their patients.

Also, name a prominent church leader and almost certainly a Web site dedicated to excoriating him or her is only a few clicks away.

Many sites critical of church leaders, movements or denominations are created by people who quote Bible verses to support their claims.

"I think the forum is really good because it's giving people all sorts of options to see and read what's out there," Walston said. "If somebody says they heard about some wacko thing, I can tell them to get on the Internet and check it out. It's all out there.

"Hopefully, the guy in the pulpit of their church will be teaching his charges good Christian theology, and they'll be able to identify what isn't."